


of traditions and rituals

by pahdme



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hinted Sibling Incest, Implication of Incest, Incest, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, Slice of Life, a birthday drabble with feelings exposed, but beware, kind of, nothing graphic at all just feelings, please heed this as your tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23474881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pahdme/pseuds/pahdme
Summary: So she touches him the way she can, the way she is allowed to express passion. And the feel of her fists against him, striking and breaking, flesh hitting flesh, is almost as good as lips against lips, as fingerprints pressing into her hips, large rough hands running through her hair.At least that’s what she tells herself when she kicks out of bed every January first, seeking him out like a predator her prey.If he can’t have her hands on him gently, he wants them any way he can have them. And if it’s punches, she’s showering him with instead of kisses, he wouldn’t know the difference.a birthday drabble for a pair of pining twins that know no way back nor forward and have wallowed in their misery for too long — happy ending!
Relationships: Alecto Carrow/Amycus Carrow
Kudos: 6





	of traditions and rituals

**Author's Note:**

> ****  
> _TW: implications of incest_  
> 
> 
> last warning!
> 
> hi everyone! this was a drabble i wrote last year as a birthday present for my former RP partner who was my incredible alecto to my amycus (and mary to my alastor and ariadne to my evan and... you get the gist, hayley ily and all our ships) for _years_ AND since it is still one of my favourite pieces i've ever written i decided to share it (with her permission!) <3
> 
> disclaimer: incest is not something i endorse or approve of whatsoever, but this is purely fictional, absolutely non graphic and my only ship i have in that regard. 
> 
> i RPed Amycus for close to three years i believe and my own version of him especially with my partner's alecto throughout the entire time has simply become incredibly dear to me and i therefore would like for anyone that has a problem with the premise of the ship to just quietly exit. i get it. i do, but no need to tear a writer down.
> 
> to everyone else, thank you for reading! <3

He swings with power. Raw capacity, nothing but brute primal force behind knuckles, cartilage and muscle. It’s clean. Sterile almost, and unmistakeable. No false pretences, none of the pleasantries he weaves into all the bullshit he normally plies people with. The intent is clear and simple whenever he lowers himself to the combat of mortals, a dance as old as humankind.

She on the other hand— when Alecto drags her delicate fist back to strike it is with venom and flame. She might as well have claws for nails and scales in place of silken creamy skin for all he knows.

Her knuckles connect to his cheekbone and Amycus tastes the acidity of her fury before the blood even bursts forth from his gums.

Toothpaste burning his mouth now he gently leans over the sink before spitting, the blood milky and frothy clinging to the smooth porcelain. Not catching her eye, since it burns like hot iron into his skull, he leans lower, catching the water right from the faucet and rinses. The brush in his hands makes a wet sopping noise as it lathers up the shaving soap, creamy and thick. Akin to clammy fingers the steam from his shower still permeates the room, creeping beneath her clothes and clutching to her skin. The mirror’s fogged up and a bead of water trails from the peach fuzz of his neck and down the valley of his back between sculpted shoulder blades.

Silence isn’t her strong suit, Alecto is all cacophony and noise and Amycus loves it. The hush envelopes the two siblings like a wet blanket. Heavy and musky, downright choking if it weren’t for the small noises of him continuing his morning routine. Clinking and clacking, soap dish against porcelain, the sound of the brush rasping over his stubble as he paints over his jaw. So unbothered, weren’t it for the adrenaline thrumming in her veins and the soft ache of her knuckles she’d question if she’d hit him at all.

And, even knowing she did, if she should hit him again.

Just as her teeth grind and her elbow twitches, Amycus raises the blade of his razor. Left hand pulling the sore skin taught, right hand ready to descend onto his face he exhales long and deep. And then his eyes meet hers in the mirror.

Alecto hasn’t moved, standing rooted to the spot until he finally acknowledges her presence in the room. The hair on the back of his neck stands straight, has ever since she entered and Amycus feels electric. A shiver threatens to roll down his spine. It was always like this, wasn’t it now? When their gazes crossed and knitted together and enveloped the other, it was like static. White noise in his ears and a feeling of lightning on his skin, just because it was her. From day one on.

And then– then all the tension the small bathroom could handle breaks because his eyes crinkle. Faint crow’s feet more prominent now through the grin splitting his mouth apart. The twitch of his lips, a barely audible chuckle, it all echoes like thunder in her chest. _21, 22, 23_ , a child counting down the distance in a storm. She holds her breath until his smooth low timbre cuts through the vibration in her ribcage, like lightning striking the earth.

_“Happy Birthday, Al.”_

* * *

The breath she held escapes in a snort, a half step forward and a last hard shove of his bare shoulder before she turns on her heel. Red hair whipping like flame, like serpents. She could be Medusa and he’d gladly stare her down, drink her in until he’d be stone.

“I’ll fucking _kill_ _you_ ,” she growls through her exit, her voice dimmed to his ears by the competing sound of the razor erasing his five o’clock shadow. He knows she means it. He knows she means it with all her heart; there are only two certainties in life: taxes and Alecto Carrow’s threats. She does not threat, she _promises_.

A beat of silence follows before her sinfully velvet voice cuts through to him again, “Next year.”

The words more soothing assurance than menacing bark to him. After all, he’s heard them before.

* * *

A year ago. A long year ago, not in this spot exactly. Instead of in the bathroom, where he was vulnerable and close to naked, she had graciously ambushed him in the safety of their kitchen. Barely a hair had fit between the back of his head and the cast iron pan tearing through the air, wielded like a claymore by the lithe witch.

_“I hate you._ ”

She meant it as a curse but it bewitched him like a spell, a siren’s song. A promise of challenge, a bite of guilt for feelings he should not have and a sick yearning for the inherently forbidden.

His skin crackles and burns where she has shoved him, if he picked one of her lip liners from the medicine cabinet before him ( _a red one? yes, certainly a red one_ ), he was sure he could trace the outline of her hands. Amycus still stares after his sister, the doorframe empty and slowly his mind coils itself back into his skull, into its rightful place, as his eyes lift to his mirrored image. The bruise blooms readily, like jasmine tea flowers when you pour hot water over them, from the hollow of his cheekbone up to the curve of his eye socket, seeping right into those treacherous fine lines he’s been denying for the past year.

* * *

_How_ ** _dare_** _he? Shove it up your arse, Am. Fucking sit on it._ Alecto spits. Literally. Right onto his neat, elegant fucking handwriting. The thick parchment paper soaks it right up, thirstily, expanding as the ink feathers from her saliva and the curves of the letters distort into wobbly shapes. The words still look disgustingly smug to her.

_Welcome to the dirty thirties, Ally ;) We’re bloody old now. Practically ancient. Do your joints crack yet? Watch it or we’ll end up an old spinster and a rusty bachelor. Wouldn’t want that now, would we?_

_Happy cursed Birthday  
_ _Am x_

She rolls her eyes again, the strain of doing it for the hundredth time that morning threatening to give her a migraine. She should’ve ripped the card, held it often enough in the past hour alone inbetween pinched fingers, that the thick cardboard was bent and frayed where she picked it up over and over and over again. The bracelet, a delicate thing bejeweled with literal droplets of ruby ( _like blood,_ her brain roared), that had accompanied the terrible note was somewhere between her sheets, the slim red box peeking out from behind her pillow. Ajar and gaping, like a pried open mouth.

For the gift alone he had deserved the punch. As if she couldn’t find fifty more reasons to beat her brother to pulp. But it was a dance now, right? A waltz well practiced with an element of surprise each year; since the music changes with the beat of her heart. Today it hammers. What do they call this, a tradition? Yes, exactly, that’s it. That’s the word she’s looking for. It’s her tradition. ( ** _Their_** _tradition?_ She wonders quietly.) So passionate it could be mistaken for true, romantic love if one dared to look beyond her raw brutality, dared to peek back at the sinewy arm snapping out and forward. If one dared to be brave and travel up her neck to her face. Right up to slate grey eyes, so hard and steely, eyes that could turn you to stone but were soft and nurturing like spring rain when she attacked him, only him. Yeah then, then one could mistake it for true romantic love.

Instead of doing something nice or at least mutually enjoyable, she does this:

Every year for the last fifteen years, on her birthday ( _their_ birthday? what kind of twins are so lucky to have birthdays on the first and last day of the year?) she charges at him full throttle with genuine intent to harm him. Rearrange his pretty fucking face. That face that started to age right in front of her nose. But of course, instead of getting ugly and easier to tease, her big brother, her _twin_ , had to age like a fucking whiskey. Nicely, _richly._ Baby fat long gone, leaving behind lean cheekbones, a sharp jaw and gentle lines around the corners of his mouth and eyes betraying that he actually smiled, was infuriatingly funny even.

She loves that face so much she can’t stand looking at it.

* * *

Alecto has resigned long ago. So long she can’t remember if it has ever been different between them. Not that she genuinely wants to remember, the pain of today, the absence of normalcy, would burn so much brighter if she did. When she can avoid the knife in her sternum, she trades gladly for the dagger between her ribs. She’s worked so hard after all, to shrink the blade and move it. So hard, to ignore times long gone. Times that seem far away and unreal now. Angry times. A childhood that’s foggy, a childhood she didn’t deserve.

So much repressed, so many memories strangled and shoved into a box at the bottom of her mind. When it’s late, the world in slumber and she’s lying in bed unable to quiet down the consistent chatter in her ears, she catches herself. Thinks sometimes. Thinks so hard it gives her a headache. Was it ever normal? She wants it to be normal now. Wants it to be easy, unencumbered. She wants to crash her lips against his day after day like it is normal, like the feelings rolling around her stomach like a ball of lead, are normal.

But they aren’t. And she can’t. So she touches him the way she can, the way she is allowed to express passion. And the feel of her fists against him, striking and breaking, flesh hitting flesh, is almost as good as lips against lips, as fingerprints pressing into her hips, large rough hands running through her hair.

At least that’s what she tells herself when she kicks out of bed every January first, seeking him out like a predator her prey.

* * *

All year Amycus counts down the days. Three hundred sixty five days every year and he’s sure, it’s _fact_ , he’d go mad if it were even a minute longer, until she engages in her yearly ritual to descend upon him like an angel to smite him.

He looks forward to it, welcomes the pain, and if he didn’t know she’d hate it and take this only moment of joy from him, he’d submit himself to her. Defences down and open like an offering to the goddess of wrath terrorizing his life with beauty and rage. But she’d reject him, so he thinks. She’d reject this open display of welcoming her battery, like a dog rolling on his back, wrinkling her delicate nose in contempt at his weakness. Without the thrill of fear, for he knows that she would not hesitate to injure him in earnest, he thinks this game of theirs would be pointless to her.

Year by year he inches toward their invisible boundaries though, feeling slick and smart like a spy on an undercover mission, putting on his act of idiocy. Who wouldn’t learn after fifteen years? How did she not question him, when she’d catch him seemingly off guard time and time again? _Maybe she doesn’t care,_ he muses when he wrangles down his body’s urge to open his arms wide at the sight of her barrelling toward him that morning.

* * *

Alecto presses her back against the hallway wall. The brick is biting the exposed skin of her shoulders as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other but she can’t feel it. Coming down from her adrenaline high she wants to faint, fingers and toes numb with her blood pressure plummeting but she breathes. She breathes until the stars stop dancing behind her lids, until she doesn’t feel tight all over thinking of his gaze filtered through the mirror. It was indirect in a way and she can’t bring herself to think of what would’ve happened had he stared at her directly. Would she have broken, thrown it all away as she’d sling her arms around his neck in a singular attempt bound for cruel rejection? Or would she have clawed at his face so he could never torture her with those sapphire eyes again that seemed to see right through her, down to her rapidly pumping heart?

_Doesn’t matter._ The moment is gone, it is always so fleeting, the countdown begins again. Just another 365 days until she gets to release it all anew with the same diligent fervour. Sure, she hits him daily, even harder then maybe, but the only time that she lets herself think he enjoys this too is today. The door in her heart is open a crack, a feeling and a curiosity she keeps locked away all other waking moments is peering from behind the locks and deadbolts. In a different life he yearns for her too. In a different life him showering a full 40 minutes means he’s waiting for her, baring himself to her, stripped down literally to nothing but a smile. But in this life? In this life it just means he’s washing away a hangover.

Her manicured nails are picking at the grout of the hallway walls when he rounds the corner, bare feet silent on the worn wood. Amycus doesn’t expect her there, it’s the first time he’s even vaguely followed her after her frenzied flight and still, he should not find her here. His sister is usually gone in an instant, like a cloud of smoke carried away by a draft before he can get a grip on her. But there’s a shift this year. He can feel it so violently, he thinks for a split second the earth is spinning backwards.

Today is _different_. The way she hung back after striking him, the fact she didn’t try to put oceans between them as soon as she left his peripheral vision, it’s off. Amycus took the time to finish shaving. Pulled on a pair of drawstring sweats, _there was no hurry_ , he reminds himself, after all he did not expect to see her here. He thought they’d finish their dance like usual. With Alecto crawling into her bed by midnight, clinging to the edge opposite of where he’d wait wrapped into her covers.

She hasn’t noticed him yet and his heartbeat quickens, uncomfortably so as it sputters and jumps wildly in his chests, so loud he’s sure she’ll hear it and attack him again. Maybe that’s what he wants.

If he can’t have her hands on him gently, he wants them any way he can have them. And if it’s punches, she’s showering him with instead of kisses, he wouldn’t know the difference.

It feels voyeuristic and dirty to watch her this way despite nothing sinful about the situation. It’s innocent, normal really. He’s just a bloke, who’s freshly turned thirty observing his younger twin sister in the hall. Silently. _Secretly_. Okay, maybe it is at least a little weird. Amycus crashes his train of thought for fear of psyching himself out and wasting the moment, so he blinks, eyes gone glassy while his gaze washes over her.

Even in such a mundane and frankly childish action, she’s shattering him. Her hair hangs like a curtain of red wine down her face opposite from him, pushed back behind a pierced ear, to inspect the handiwork of her long nails painted onyx as they scratch at the brittle mortar. The mass of her hair, the wilderness of it all is barely contained behind her ear like it is an animal’s fur, feral and suddenly Amycus understands why he seems to find bobby pins wherever he goes.

His gaze moves fluidly like water from her hair down to her scowl, her gently groomed brows are furrowed so tightly in concentration over smoke coloured eyes staring seemingly into nothing, he feels the tightness in his own forehead. She’s just glaring, glaring at whatever’s occupying her so fervently. He has no idea that it’s him putting that expression on her delicate features. Wouldn’t dare dream of it in life times, least of all, his.  
Coincidentally he wishes then he could read her mind, it isn’t the first time and it will not be the last.

When he discovered for the first time as a brooding teenager that he had a way with words aside from pure boyish charm to get him what he wanted, he thought of what he’d say to Alecto if they weren’t them. If they weren’t twins. If they were just an ordinary witch and wizard. If they– if they weren’t related. One of the litanies of things he burned to tell her was that she was fire to him. All consuming flame sprouting from her scalp, the ash of her eyes still burning and hot with the embers that simmered under her skin and threatened to burn him if he reached out. But most of all, she was fire because she’d drain him of oxygen as soon as she graced him with her attention. And he wanted to choke if it meant choking on her.

Before his eyes can properly drink in the plumpness and pout of her heart shaped lips, he shifts his weight. And the fucking house blows his cover with the creaking of the loose floorboard beneath his right foot. Not only has he gotten numerous splinters from this house, now it was even judging him and busting his sick arse?

The sound hasn’t even stopped bouncing between the walls to the back of the hall when her head shoots up so fast it should give her whiplash. Pewter eyes staring at him so sharply they might as well be bullets burning through his chest, stopping his heart. He’s frozen, all deer in headlights caught in an act that shouldn’t be alarming but they both know it is. Then she’s faster than light and he can barely breathe out a heartfelt _“Fuck”_ before she’s running. Practically flying down the hall with her brother scrambling to catch up. What a metaphor for their life. He’d entered this world before her but when she saw the light of day Alecto hit the ground fucking running. For the past thirty years he felt like she was always a step ahead of him, desperately trying to catch even the corner of her skirt so she wouldn’t leave him in the dust.

Her eyes zero in on the curve of the stairs at the end of the hall, she just needs to get to the stairs and she’ll gain distance, she’s sure. _But why?_ The thought is entirely unprompted and breaks through her tunnel vision so forcefully it knocks the wind from her lungs. Yeah, _why_ really? Something had happened that fraction of a moment ago, something had transpired between them. This unspoken something she’s fostered in her belly for years had been _there_ , out in the open before she had lunged into her dead sprint.

Before she knows it her body is giving in, she’s stopped dead in her tracks and spins around. Just in time for his body to crash into hers like the tide, he was so close on her heels, _as always_ , that there was no time to skid to a stop before he’s rocketing them forward. The floor tips under her bare feet and they crash into the ground, a gnashing of bone against flesh and wood. Amycus’ hand shot forward, the good grace in mind to catch his weight and not crush her lithe form but to no avail. Her chest is flat, heaving against his boxer’s frame and immediately she wriggles again, thrashing to fight free. He’s so sick of it. Sick of being the unnamed villain and with an involuntary growl he catches her wrists and pins them next to her head as he lift onto his knees.

“What the _fuck_ , Alecto?” Blue meets grey, frantic panic hazy in them both but he’s searching deeper. Surface level won’t do anymore. It never did.

“What do you mean? You were the one staring like a creep!” She bites back, defiant and aglow with a spreading flush. Alecto is flame and she’s licking up the tinder, rising skyward.

His voice bellows, ignoring the truthful sharp accusations crawling under his skin. “Why did you _run_?”

Pause. Alecto is _tired_. So, _so_ tired. So bone deep tired, she feels the exhaustion of millennia. Of lifetimes before. Of struggles as ancient as magic. When her voice breaks, it’s small and fragile as crystal, “Do you not know?”

His breath catches and he feels his chest cave in. It cannot be, this was a dream and his wide-eyed stare pierces her like a needle. But it is there. In her eyes and now he knows that not even he has ever seen her unguarded. Alecto’s eyes are not the color of a sea at storm. No heavy rain clouds over the coast. They’re argent, bright and shining. A gleam of pure silver around her pupil.

Amycus swallows and eyes of ocean’s depth turn into a glacier’s stream.

“I do,” he breathes, “ _I know_. Of course, I do.”


End file.
